Once an Agent, Always an Agent
by Kips34
Summary: Emily Prentiss sees an attack in progress and puts herself in harm's way to save a stranger's life. What happens when her attackers come back to finish the job? Will they be after Emily as well? Unable, and unwilling, to turn to the BAU for help, will Emily be able to trust Gibbs and his team to help her? Warning: Sexual Violence, Foul Language, Violence, etc.
1. Ch 1 Wrong Place, Right Time

**Once an Agent, Always an Agent**

 **Summary:** Emily Prentiss has resigned her position as an agent of the BAU, rather than betray her unit chief by providing his boss, the section chief, with information that might tarnish his record and disrupt the team. She has received several job offers, but most are out of country and she doesn't want to leave DC right away, so she takes some time for herself. What happens when she is witness to a heinous crime, and the unsub decides to tie up loose ends? Will Emily find a new team and a new agency to help her through the chaos, or will she fall victim to a monster so like those she used to hunt? **NCIS/Criminal Minds Crossover**

 **Chapter 1: Wrong Place at the Right Time**

Emily just couldn't sleep. It had been two weeks since she put in her letter of resignation at the BAU, and she was growing restless. She knew that leaving the team was the only way to ensure Strauss didn't continue to try to use her to damage Hotch's career, and she was at peace with her decision to leave, despite how hard she had worked for a spot on that team. But that didn't keep her from staying up all night thinking about the newest case her former team was likely working, or wondering if they were all ok without her.

She had promised herself that she would take some time for herself before making any decisions about where to go next with her career; she already had offers from Counter Terrorism back at the FBI, several offers from the state department, and even some renewed interest from Clyde Easter at Interpol. She wanted to really evaluate all of her options before giving anyone an answer, and in all honesty, she knew she needed a little time to recover from what had essentially been several years straight of intense work with no real time off.

But now, she was bored, and worrying about the BAU team instead of thinking about her own plans. And it was three in the morning on a Friday night, and she couldn't sleep a wink. Just great…

Emily rolled out of bed, giving up on trying to fight her insomnia for the time being. She needed to run off some of this extra energy. Maybe then she would be able to go back to sleep for a bit.

After putting on her shoes and a light windbreaker, Emily slipped out of her apartment building and took off at a light jog, studiously ignoring the disapproving looks the building's night guard was giving her.

It was a cool night, the beginnings of winter starting to take root in DC, but she liked the feel of the crisp night air on her flushed cheeks as she ran. Made her feel alive.

She let her mind wander as her feet continued their increasing rhythm along the cold pavement. She hadn't spoken to anyone from the BAU team since she left. Which was understandable, given Strauss had likely lied her ass off about why she'd really left. And it wasn't as though she had made any effort to reach out. Last she'd heard, the team was headed to Milwaukee on a case. Had they caught the unsub? Had they all made it home safe? Were they on another case now? Had anyone heard from Gideon yet?

She knew leaving was going to be hard. It always was hard for her when the time came to move teams. But she hadn't expected to miss them so much. JJ and Penelope were her best friends. Reid was like a kid brother who she had come to truly care about despite their shaky start. Morgan was a total flirt, but he could always make her smile; he was her partner. Hotch was like her older brother. He was a thorn in her side most of the time, but she could always depend on him to look out for her and the team. He was her protector, her rock.

At least they all had each other. She felt very alone right now, running through the pitch black streets of the still sleeping city, thinking about her former team, her former friends. But it was worth it because the team was still together. Hotch could keep his job. Gideon would eventually get word to the team somehow, even if he never came back. Strauss would just have to shelve her anti-Hotch agenda for the time being, and the team would stay together. Someone else would be brought in to fill her desk soon enough, and they would go on as if she had never been there. Just like they had when her predecessor, Elle, left. This would be no different.

Comforted by the thought that the BAU team would be ok, Emily turned another corner, picking up speed. Just another mile or two, then she'd go home and sleep like the dead.

Tomorrow, she could finally start really working on planning for her next ste –

Her thoughts were interrupted when a shrill scream pierced the night air. Emily stopped dead in her tracks, startled by the sound that seemed to have come from an alley just a block or so ahead of her. She was in the warehouse district now, down near the docks, and she hadn't expected to see or hear anyone this far from the main city blocks, especially at this time of night.

Honestly, it wasn't the brightest move on her part to be running alone at this time of night anyone, especially without her gun, but she hadn't really been thinking about any of that when she'd left her apartment.

She slowly approached the alley entrance, trying to listen for any clues as to what she was about to walk into.

"No…" a female voice croaked, the sound laced with panic and pain, "Don't… please, no…stop, please God, stop…"

That was enough for Emily. Someone was hurt and in serious trouble, and she couldn't just walk away. She didn't have her gun, and in her rush to leave her place, she hadn't grabbed her cell phone so she couldn't call for help. Crap! But she had to do something.

So she quickly rounded the corner and took off running down the alley towards the woman who was still pleading with her attackers, and yelled, "Hey! Get the hell off her!"

As she took in the scene before her, she felt sick to her stomach. Emily had seen just about everything at this point, and a large part of her profiler brain was taking it all in and cataloguing it for future reference, but a part of her was still just horrified.

The woman was a young, pretty brunette in what looked like a torn Navy uniform. There were three men around her.

One of them was on the ground behind and beneath her, holding her arms in a tight hold behind her back in one hand, his other arm, wrapped tightly around her neck, cutting off her screams. He loosened his hold and looked up in shock as he saw Emily barreling towards them.

Another stood behind him, leaning casually against the wall of the alley, watching with a smug grin firmly in place. A look which slipped momentarily when he registered Emily's voice echoing off the walls.

The third was leaning over top of her, his shirt discarded beside them, his pants around his ankles as he thrust into her relentlessly. Emily had seen the aftermath of this crime a thousand times over in her work, but witnessing it first-hand made her blood boil with uncontrollable rage. And this sick bastard didn't even flinch, completely oblivious to her approach as he continued his violent assault.

That is until he was ripped off the poor woman by a very pissed-off Emily Prentiss…

Thug one had released the woman and crawled out from under her, and was now standing beside thug two, both of them taking up defensive posture. Thug three, the bastard, was now sprawled on the pavement at Emily's feet, his pants still around his ankles.

The woman was quickly losing consciousness, and it was obvious to Emily she wasn't going to be any help in this fight. Three against one… Fantastic…

She'd faced far worse odds and come out ok, but she had to defend the other woman which would make this far more complicated, she was unarmed, without so much as a switch blade to defend herself, and thanks to her lack of forethought earlier, she had no means to call for back-up.

Thug three was on his feet now, his pants hung undone around his waist, and the three of them were circling her and their victim. "Well look at this Paul," thug three drawled out in a thick Southern accent to thug one, Paul, "We got ourselves a little hero. Pretty little thing too…" his voice trailed off as he made a grab for Emily's arm, which she quickly dodged.

"Now, don't be like that darling," the one she now knew was Paul chided her, approaching from the opposite side, pulling a small knife from his jacket pocket, "We're all just gonna have a little fun, that's all."

Emily knew exactly what they meant by fun, and she had no intention of letting them touch her or the Navy woman, "I would leave now if I were you," she warned them, preparing to strike Paul since he appeared to be the only one with a weapon.

"I don't think so," thug two responded, reaching behind his back, and pulling out a gun, which he quickly leveled right in her face. Well, shit… That complicates things…

She slowly backed down, putting herself right in front of the injured woman, whose tattered uniform she noted read Collins. Emily was more than capable of getting a gun away from a punk like this, but with two other men there ready to back him up, and an innocent that might get caught in the line of fire, she had to be very careful how she handled this situation.

"You don't have to do this," she tried to reason with them, hoping to at the very least distract them enough to make her move.

"You hear that John," Paul asked thug two, John, laughing, "We don't have to do this," he mocked, getting right in her face, his blade resting against her throat with enough pressure to draw blood. "Thing is darling, we want to."

And that was when she saw her opening. Paul looked back at the other two, easing the pressure on his knife just slightly, and she struck hard and fast. First his right arm, causing him to drop the blade and grunt in pain. Then two quick jabs to his gut, and a quick cross right to his jaw.

The other two only hesitated a moment in their shock, but it was enough. Emily spun away from Paul, kicking John hard in the right shoulder, causing him to drop his gun and fall backwards onto the pavement much as thug one had earlier.

She lunged for the gun, but thug one grabbed her from behind before she could get her hand around it, swinging her around him. She landed hard on her hip and her head cracked loudly against the ground, momentarily stunning her. All three men moved in one her, completely forgetting about the other woman in their growing fury with her.

She crawled back away from them, to the opposite wall, farthest from the Navy woman, as she tried to reorient herself. Paul had retrieved his blade, but held it in his left hand now, obviously still feeling the effects of her well-placed blow to his dominant arm. Thug one had the gun, but John wasn't unarmed, evidently pulling his own knife after dropping his primary weapon. She was so screwed… Why the hell hadn't she brought her gun with her?

"Looks like we've got a fighter here boys," John said sarcastically just before kicking her hard in the ribs.

She continued to move away, until she was sitting up, her back firmly against the alley wall. She tried to stand, but Paul's fist connected with her jaw then, knocking her back to the ground with the force of the impact. "Not so brave now are ya?" he asked her, grabbing ahold of her hair and dragging her back into the center of the alley, as the three of them surrounded her.

Emily knew that if this kept up for much longer she would end up in much the same position she had found the Navy woman, or worse, but she couldn't keep fighting all three of them by herself without a weapon…

Of course that was when thug three knelt down, straddling her waist, despite her efforts to buck him off. He pushed the muzzle of the gun into the meat of her shoulder as he grabbed her forearms in his other hand, and held them down against the ground above her head. She hated being in this vulnerable a position, and was desperately trying to find a way out of it.

He lowered his face, so that their noses were almost touching, and looked straight into her eyes, meeting her glare with his own, before he spoke, "I'm going to enjoy putting you in your place."

But he never got a chance to make good on his threat because just as the words came out, Emily threw her head up with all the force she could muster, colliding it with his own. As she expected, the surprise of the blow caused him to pull the trigger, and the bullet tore through her shoulder, causing her to cry out, but it also caused him to release his hold on her arms and ease some of his weight off of her. And that was enough.

Fighting to ignore the pain in her shoulder, she swung her other arm around, meeting her fist with his jaw, before flipping them over on the ground. Once she had him pinned beneath her, and had wrestled the gun from his hands, she fired two rounds into his chest.

Emily then rolled off of him, just barely missing the knife as Paul lunged for her. From her place on the ground, she fired another round into Paul's thigh, just above his knee, causing him to stumble and fall, before John kicked the gun out of her hands. She expected him to attack her then, but he surprised her by rushing to thug three's side, and dropping to his knees to apply pressure to his wounds.

"Come on Chris," he said to thug three, Chris, "Don't you dare die on me, brother." But there was no response. Chris was very clearly dead, and while that meant there was one less of them to content with, Emily also feared that might be the thing that pushed John over the edge, and she didn't think she would be able to fight him off much longer.

While John was distracted, Emily retrieved the fallen gun, and then moved herself along the ground, back to a defensible position in front of the still unconscious Navy woman.

The movement caught Paul's attention and he made a move toward her, but stopped when she leveled the gun at his chest, "Don't make me shoot you," she warned him, "No one else needs to die here tonight."

She realized as soon as the words left her lips that it was the wrong thing to say, as John stood and wheeled around, visibly shaking in his fury. No one else needed to die, but John's brother was already dead…

He took two steps towards her, and she swiveled the gun's sights to his chest, pulled the trigger, and then cursed loudly as it clicked, empty. Goddamn it! The morons hadn't even used a fully loaded clip! And now both John and Paul were moving toward her, both wielding blades, and both seriously pissed off.

What the hell was she supposed to do now? She had a bullet lodged in her shoulder for goodness sake, and her whole damned body was covered in cuts and bruises. Plus, she was fairly certain she had a concussion. And, of course, Collins, the Navy woman she had gotten into this whole mess to help, was still out cold.

And that was when she heard the best sound in the world…

Police sirens.

Someone had evidently heard the gun shots. The sun was beginning to peak over the horizons and someone must have arrived for the morning crews somewhere on the docks, and called the cops. Thank God!

"Shit!" Paul bellowed, grabbing John's shoulder to steady himself as blood continued to run freely from his injured leg, "We gotta go man. Cops will be here any second!"

John looked seriously torn in that moment, but evidently valued his life and his freedom above avenging his brother, at least for the moment, because he tucked his blade in his pocket, threw Paul's arm over his shoulder, and helped him to the end of the alley, where their car was waiting.

Emily took note of the make and model, and tried to memorize the license plate number, though her head was pounding enough with her evident concussion she suspected that wouldn't be much help later.

She was slipping into unconsciousness herself, sliding to the ground beside Collins, as the sirens grew louder in the distance, but she registered one last thing before she blacked out, John's voice as he yelled, "This isn't over bitch! You'll pay for killing Chris!" And then the two men drove away into the night and she passed out.


	2. Ch 2 Grab Your Gear

**Chapter 2: Grab Your Gear**

Super special agent Tony Dinozzo strolled into NCIS headquarter Saturday morning with an oddly cheerful expression. He always came in on Saturdays in the morning, but if there wasn't an ongoing case, and nothing pressing came up, he was usually dancing out the door by lunchtime, and he was already looking forward to his first free weekend in months.

Of course his smile dropped the second he caught sight of Gibbs at his desk, on the phone. He only ever used the damn thing when it was about a case. The man hated technology and probably wouldn't even own a phone if the job didn't require it, so him, on the phone, at seven in the morning, could only mean they had a case. Crap. There went his weekend plans.

McGee walked in behind him, made a similar mental note, and sighed aloud as he made his way to his desk. He had also been looking forward to a quiet day in the office. David was already at her desk, one hand resting on her field bag, no doubt expecting Gibbs' next words as much as her coworkers.

"Grab your gear," he called as he stood from his desk and strode out of the bullpen, "Dead Navy officer in the warehouse district."

They all followed him into the elevator and Tim asked, "Warehouse district? Not much foot traffic down there on the weekends. One of the fishing crews find him?"

"Night guard on the docks called the police early this morning when he heard several gunshots. Police responded and found two women, both unconscious and badly beaten. One of them was in a Navy uniform, the other appears to be a civilian, but had no identification on her so we're not sure yet. The civilian woman had a gunshot wound to her shoulder and was losing a lot of blood. The ambulances got both women to the hospital, but as far as I know the civilian is still in surgery and they don't know if she's going to pull through." Gibbs explained.

"And our dead officer?" David pressed, as they all exited the elevator and made their way to the SUV.

"Dead on arrival," Gibbs said simply.

They drove in a comfortable silence, as they all formulated different possible scenarios to explain what they knew so far. Were all three attacked, and their attacked fled the scene? Did the civilian come after the officers, or vice versa? What were any of them doing in that part of town in the middle of the night? Who did the gun belong to? Were the two women still in danger?

Gibbs brings the SUV to a stop at the mouth of an alley which has been clearly marked with crime scene tape, and the team exits the vehicle as a unit.

The scene is a mess. Because the police and EMTs were on site before NCIS was called in, and the two women were still alive and needed to be treated and moved, much of the forensic evidence has been corrupted. But that is to be expected with this type of case, and hopefully anything that was lost as a result of all that foot traffic, will be made up for by the witness accounts from the two women. Assuming of course, that they survive.

Ziva David is photographing the various blood splatter around the small alleyway, and looks puzzled. "What do you see David?" Gibbs asks her.

"There is a very clear blood pool around our dead officer," Ziva begins.

"Petty Officer Christopher Swanson," Tim informs them, looking at the finger print scan he has just performed.

"Around Swanson," Ziva corrects, "And these two large blood pools coincide with where the first responders found our two survivors lying," she continues pointing to two spots against the far wall, "And there is significant spatter throughout the alley consistent with blunt force trauma like that which we were told each of the women received, so there was obviously a fight…"

Tony seems to realize what she is getting at and continues her thought seamlessly, "But this spatter here," pointing to the wall Ziva is facing, "would indicate another gunshot wound, one with an upward trajectory that would have hit its target below the waist…"

"And our gunshot victim in the hospital was hit in the shoulder, right? So…" Tim chimes in.

"So, there was someone else here, who was injured and fled the scene," Gibbs concludes, "And whoever they are, they were likely shot by one of our living victims, which means we need to get to the hospital and take those witness statements right away. David, Dinozzo, take the SUV. Get me an ID on our mystery man. McGee and I will ride back with Ducky."

The two agents climb into the vehicle and leave, just as Ducky and his assistant arrive in the ME van.

"How odd," Ducky is saying, "I could have sworn Mr. Palmer that we were told to arrive at the site for a triple homicide, yet I see only one body."

"Other two victims survived Duck," Gibbs explains as the medical examiner begins his preliminary observations.

Across town, two NCIS agents arrive at the hospital and are directed to the ICU.

"Were you able to get a positive ID on either of the women brought in this morning?" Tony asks the nurse who's brought them up here.

"One of them, yes," she says calmly, "I am taking you to your Navy officer, Lt. Samantha Collins. She is in very bad shape, but her doctors are quite confident that she will make a full recovery."

"What were the lieutenant's injuries?" Ziva asks.

"Severe bruising throughout most of her body I'm afraid," the young nurse, Sandy, tells her, "She also has several broken ribs, a sprained wrist, and a mild concussion. I'm also afraid to say that there were signs of sexual assault; I'll be sure to have them send over the results of the rape kit when they come in."

They have reached Collins' door at this point, but Tony looks decidedly uncomfortable, unsure whether or not to enter given the news that their victim suffered sexual assault and might not be comfortable around unfamiliar men right away. Ziva notices this and asks Sandy, "Is our Jane Doe out of surgery yet? I think it would be best if I conducted this interview alone, and Agent Dinozzo might wish to speak with her doctors, or even the woman herself if she is awake."

"Of course," Sandy readily agrees, "Let's go see if we can find out," and leads Tony towards the closest nurses station.

Ziva knocks quietly and enters the patient room. Lt. Collins is strapped to a great many tubes and machines, but she is awake. In fact, her head swings towards the door at the sound of Ziva's entrance, as if startled for a moment. The agent notes this reaction and is sure not to make any sudden movements as she approaches the bed, recognizing that Collins may be suffering from some PTSD symptoms.

"Hello lieutenant," Ziva addresses the woman, "I am Agent David, with NCIS. I'd like to ask you a few questions about what happened last night, if that's alright?"

"Um, yeah, I mean, of course," she stutters slightly, trying to sit up straighter, "What do you need to know?"

"Can you begin by telling me what you were doing in the Warehouse District last night?"

"It was really stupid," Collins begins, looking down at her lap, "I sometimes take a short-cut through there when I walk home, and I'd been at a party not far from the docks with some of my crewmates. It was late, and I'd had a few drinks so I decided it wouldn't be wise to drive home, but I didn't want to impose on my friends by staying over," she pauses looking down again. She really wishes now that she had just stayed. No one would have cared, and then none of this would have happened…

"It's ok," Ziva encourages her, "Take your time."

"I was walking between two of the warehouses, down a little alley, when I heard voices up ahead of me. Maybe it was the alcohol, but I really didn't think anything of it, even though there's never anyone down there… I just kept walking, but then someone grabbed my arm from behind," she trailed off, her eyes glassy, clearly reliving the previous night's events.

"It's alright," Ziva assured her, placing her hands softly atop the ones still in Collins' lap, encouraged when the woman didn't flinch away from her, "You're here, and you're safe. Can you tell me what happened next?"

"I didn't see his face," she tells the agent, tears filling her eyes, "He spun me around and hit my head against the wall of one of the buildings. I suppose I must have a concussion?"

"A mild one, yes, but the doctors are confident there shouldn't be any lasting effects," Ziva confirms.

"That makes sense," she continues, "It gets a little fuzzy after that. I'm not sure if I was going in and out of consciousness or if I'm just only remembering bits and pieces because of the bump on my head, but it's a little choppy."

"That's fine. Just tell me what you do remember. Maybe I can help fill in some of the blanks."

"There were three of them, all men. I didn't get a good luck at any of them, blurry vision," she explains, "But there were definitely three of them. They smacked me around a bit, and I think one of them called the other, Chris. He was, um, he, Chris," she gets choked up at this point and Ziva knows that she is remembering the rape.

"I know about the sexual assault," she says gently, "You don't need to tell me anything specific about that if you don't want to. I just need to know who hurt you? Was it the one they called Chris?" The woman simply nods. "Ok, did you hear either of the other men's names?"

"No," she says, "Chris was, um, he was in the middle of… He told the others that they could, take a turn when he was finished…" she trails off again, and Ziva feels like crying, or pummeling someone into the ground. It was bad enough that one man had hurt her this way. If the other two had also… "They didn't though," she assures the agent immediately.

"What stopped them?" Ziva presses.

"The woman," she says, unsure how to elaborate.

"Could you describe her?" she asks, hoping to confirm whether or not she is talking about the Jane Doe in surgery.

"Tall, light skin, dark hair, jogging clothes. I didn't recognize her," she tells Ziva.

"She was brought to the hospital with you. We don't know who she is yet, but she survived," she tells the lieutenant, not wanting to tell her just how close it came, or that her survival is still not a certainty, "Can you tell me what you mean when you say that she stopped them?"

"She must have heard me scream, because she came running around the corner, yelling. I think she was telling them to get away from me. The last thing I remember was her pulling Chris off of me and shoving him to the ground."

"Thank you. If I have any more questions I'll be sure to come by, but if you think of anything else, call me, anytime, ok?" Ziva hands the woman her business card, and heads for the door, but stops when she hears Collins' voice.

"Would you thank her for me?" she asked, "The woman who saved me. You said she was in the hospital too, right? They hurt her because she stopped them from hurting me, and… I think if she hadn't stopped them, they would have killed me… Just, will you tell her I said thank you?"

"Of course," Ziva assures her before leaving the hospital room, thinking just how lucky the young officer really is to still be alive. She was spared because a random passerby heard her and was willing to risk their life to save her. Whoever this woman was, she had Ziva's respect.


	3. Ch 3 Thank God for Cameras

**Chapter 3: Thank God for Cameras**

"Agent Dinozzo, I presume?" a deep voice called and Tony turned to face the approaching doctor.

"You presume correctly," he answered, extending his hand for the doctor to shake.

"I'm Dr. Gerandy," he introduced, shaking Tony's hand firmly, "I performed the surgery on your Jane Doe."

"What can you tell me about her condition?" the agent asked him, secretly hoping that the mystery woman had survived and could give him and his team some much needed answers.

"She'll live," he began, addressing what was obviously Tony's primary concern first, "We were able to remove the bullet from her shoulder. It had lodged itself into her scapula, her shoulder blade," he explained at Dinozzo's confused expression, "There was some fairly serious damage to the muscle tissue there, and she will likely have to go through some physical therapy to regain full mobility of the joint, but there shouldn't be any permanent damage. Beyond the gunshot wound, which was obviously our primary concern, Jane Doe suffered a moderate concussion. There was also extensive bruising throughout much of her upper body, and several large gashes on her knees and forearms, likely defensive wounds as well as those suffered from being shoved roughly to the ground. Several of these required stitches, but again there should be no permanent damage. Overall, I'd say your mystery woman was incredibly lucky. If first responders hadn't been called immediately, things could have been far worse."

Tony was glad that she would be ok, but there was one major question still nagging him and even though he didn't want to ask, he knew he had to, "Were there any signs of sexual assault?"

"No, thankfully, there were not," Dr. Gerandy assured him, "Given the heavy bruising to her wrists and forearms, which we took to indicate she had been held down at some point during the beating, combined with the fact that the other woman brought in at the same time did suffer such wounds, we had cause for concern, but we found no evidence of it. I suppose she'll be able to tell you exactly what did happen when she wakes up."

Thank goodness! He still wasn't entirely certain what had happened in that ally, but he was beyond pleased to learn Jane Doe had not suffered the same fate as Lt. Collins. She had put up one hell of a fight, and he was beginning to suspect that she had actually been the one to kill the petty officer. And she very well might have been the only reason the lieutenant survived the attack. "And when do you expect her to regain consciousness?" he asked finally.

"Several hours at least," the doctor admitted, "You are free to wait if you'd like. If not, I can have someone call you when she wakes up so you can take her statement then."

"That should be fine doctor. Thank you." And with that, Tony made his way back up to the ICU to find Ziva so they could return to headquarters and share what they'd learned.

Back at the Navy yard, Gibbs is down in autopsy with Ducky, discussing the petty officer on his slab.

"Muzzle fire, Duck?" Gibbs asked for confirmation, as he examined Swanson's chest. The gunshot wounds were ragged at the entry, and there were small burns around them. He had seen this sort of wound before, and could only conclude that the gun had been flush to the petty officer's chest when it was fired.

"Ah, yes, I came to the same conclusion," Ducky informed the agent, "And the bullets both went clean through. I believe Timothy recovered them from where they had embedded themselves in the cement beneath the petty officer's body."

"So whoever killed him, shot him twice in the chest at point blank range, from directly above him, while he was lying on the ground?" Gibbs continued, growing irritated. None of this made sense to him, "But that would mean his assailant would have had to be kneeling on the ground, either beside or on top of him when they shot him…"

"Yes, I would say so," the good doctor confirmed.

"And there were no defensive wounds?" Gibbs asked, though he could clearly see there were not.

"No, quite the opposite actually. His knuckles were split clean open from what I can only assume was the giving of a brutal beating. I very much suspect whoever killed this man did so as an act of self-defense."

Agent Gibbs didn't like it at all, but he agreed with Ducky. It was looking more and more like Petty Officer Swanson attacked one or both of their mystery women in that alley, and one of them killed him in self-defense. But he had a feeling that he was missing something huge. He only hoped that his team would be able to fill in some of the gaping holes in the case.

"Report!" he barked as he entered the bullpen to find Dinozzo and David had returned from the hospital, and McGee was working at his desk.

"The hospital was able to identify one of our female victims," Ziva began, moving to the center of the room and displaying several photos on the main plasma, "Lt. Samantha Collins, 26 years old. I spoke with her doctors and interviewed her once she woke up. She was unable to identify Swanson due to a serious head injury, and the nature of her attack, but she did reveal that there a total of three men that attacked her in the alley. They beat her, and one of them raped her. She believes that they intended to kill her, but were interrupted. According to her, an unknown woman saw her being attacked and intervened, pulling her rapist off or her. She doesn't know what happened after that because she blacked out from her injuries, but her description of the woman is consistent with the Jane Doe found in the alley."

"Any ID on our Jane Doe?" Gibbs directs his question to Dinozzo.

"Not yet, boss," he replies, "I spoke with her doctors, and they believe she will recover from her injuries, though she did have to undergo surgery and likely won't be able to give us a statement until tonight or tomorrow."

"Were her injuries consistent with Lt. Collins' account?" Gibbs pressed.

"Yes, I believe so. Primarily defensive wounds, but she took quite a beating. There were no signs of sexual assault, but her doctor did say that the extent and placement of her bruising indicated to him that there might have been an attempt made to that end, even if the act was not actually committed. I would say, Jane Doe interrupted the attack, the three men redirected their attention to her when Collins passed out, and she put up a fight, killing Swanson and holding her own until the police arrived."

"Which explains the extra blood we found at the scene," Ziva continues, "Jane Doe shot one of the other men in that alley, and they both likely fled when they heard the police sirens."

Gibbs absorbed this, nodding. It appeared both women were incredibly lucky to be alive. If Jane Doe hadn't arrived when she did, Collins would be dead. And the gun retrieved at the scene was out of rounds, so if the police hadn't run off the other two when they did, Jane Doe would likely be dead.

"McGee!" Gibbs turned to the other agent for his input.

"Just a second, boss," the younger agent answered, "There was a camera at the far end of the alley. It's old, and the quality is incredibly poor, but I think with just a little more cleaning up… There we go," he swipes his screen, sending the video to the main plasma, "We should be able to see exactly what happened. There's no audio, so we'll still need to talk to our Jane Doe when she wakes up, but it should be able to confirm our current theory, and maybe help us identify some of the unknown parties." He finishes his explanation and starts the video.

The four of them watch as the three men, one of whom they identify as Swanson, gather in the alley, clearly drinking. Then as Collins approaches, unaware of their presence, and Swanson grabs her from behind. They watch her brutal assault, and cringe as they witness her being raped.

Then they see the Jane Doe running toward the attack, and pushing Swanson off Collins. They watch her fight three men twice her size, unarmed. They see every minute of the attack, including when she purposefully takes a bullet in order to gain the upper hand on Swanson. They confirm that she shot another of the men in the leg, and that the unknown two leave in a vehicle just before police arrive on scene.

None of them are quite sure what to say in that moment. They have seen enough death and violence in their work to be relatively unaffected by the horrific nature of the attack, even the sexual assault. But they are all in awe of this woman who went running towards a deadly fight with no real means to defend herself, in order to save a complete stranger. Who was this woman?

"I have isolated the best images we have of the other two men, and our Jane Doe, and am running them through the system now," McGee breaks the heavy silence, "But like I said, the quality isn't good, and there aren't any clean shots of their faces because of the angle of the camera, so it may take some time. I also can't get a clean look at the car they left in, so there's no license plate to run."

"Let me know if you get any hits," Gibbs tells him, "I want IDs on the men who brutally attacked our lieutenant, and I want to know the name of the woman who was damn near killed saving her."

It was then that the booming voice sounded behind them. None of the team had realized their Director was there with them, watching the surveillance video until his voice echoed through the room, answering Gibbs' last statement.

"Emily," he said, sounding both profoundly sad and incredibly proud, "Her name is Emily Prentiss."


	4. Ch 4 A Ghost from His Past

**Chapter 4: A Ghost from the Past**

"It was one of my first cases with the agency," Director Vance explains, his eyes glazed over as he remembers, "Young Emily was a fighter, even back then…"

 **23 Years Ago**

It had been a long couple of days for Probationary Agent Leon Vance. Two dead marines on vacation in Moscow, what turned out to be nothing more than a bar brawl gone wrong, but he had been sent to Russia to investigate. Now, with his suspects safely behind bars, and extradition orders in place, his job was done.

Leon walked into the American embassy, expecting to collect his things, and finally make his way to the airstrip and head home. But that was not how his day was destined to go.

No sooner had he stepped through the main entryway, then the evacuation orders were given and the alarms sounded. He didn't know what was happening, but suddenly everyone inside was flooding out the front gates.

"What's going on?" he demanded of one of the embassy guards.

"I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to disc – "the guard began, but Leon cut him off.

"I am with the American Naval Investigative Service (NIS). Now are you going to tell me why the American embassy is being evacuated, or do I need to contact your superior?" he got right in the man's face, not having the patience to beat around the bush with the man.

"There has been a bomb threat against this location," the guard revealed, "The compound needs to be swept for any devices before anyone will be allowed back inside. I'm sorry; that's all I know."

Three hours later, the embassy had been cleared, and everyone was beginning to file back in when Leon caught sight of what appeared to be blood coming from around the corner of the compound. Upon investigation, he discovered the bodies of three men from the Ambassador's protection detail.

He rounded up the remaining guards in the yard and had them locate the Ambassador and the head of her security staff.

"Do you recognize these men?" he asked the former marine when he introduced himself as her head of security.

"Yes, these were the personal bodyguards for Ambassador Prentiss' daughter, Emily. No one has been able to locate her as of yet," he informed Leon, who immediately jumped into action.

The bomb threat had been a ploy to get the embassy emptied out, and in the chaos of the evacuation, someone had taken the Ambassador's daughter and killed her protection detail. He needed to get everyone mobilized immediately if they were going to have any chance of finding young Emily alive.

 **3 Days Later**

"It doesn't make any sense!" Ambassador Prentiss lashed out, "No ransom call. No political demands. No one claiming credit. Why would anyone go to so much trouble to take my little girl if not to demand something of me? She is just a kid…"

Elizabeth Prentiss was beyond stressed out at this point. Her daughter had been missing for over 72 hours and as of yet there had been no contact from her captors whatsoever.

The dogs had lost the girl's scent almost immediately, indicating to Leon that her captors had transported her in a waiting vehicle, but there were no cameras on the main streets there that captured the car or her kidnappers. There was nothing concrete to go on except the assumption that an Ambassador's daughter would only be kidnapped for monetary or political motivation, but so far that didn't appear to be the case.

Over the past three days, Leon and the embassy security staff had worked with Moscow police to interview everyone working for or living at the embassy as well as Emily's few friends from her elementary school. So, far the only thing that had turned up was another missing boy whose father was a guard at the embassy, but he had been abducted weeks prior in a public park, and there was nothing yet to connect the cases.

Everyone was at their wit's end at this point, and though Leon had been asked to stay and help, he didn't know what else he could do…

 **2 Days Later**

Leon was sitting with a crying Elizabeth, trying to decide what his next move should be. His continued investigation had turned up another two missing children with ties to the embassy, though more tenuous. One girl's half-sister was a visiting diplomat, and the other boy had an uncle who worked for the catering staff. He wasn't sure what it meant, but the fact that no bodies had been recovered gave him hope that the children might still be alive.

Just then the phone rang in the Ambassador's suite, and Elizabeth practically dove for the phone, answering it on the first ring while Leon slipped the headphones on and pressed the record button on the device hooked to the phone.

"Hello?" Elizabeth answered, her voice rough from crying.

"Mom?" a little girl's voice came through the line, out of breath, and low, like she was whispering. This was Emily Prentiss.

"Emily? Oh God, Emily is that you?" her frantic mother asked, praying that it was really her little girl.

"Yeah, Mom, it's me. I'm ok, but I don't have much time," she continued to whisper, her rushed words cutting off her mother's, "Are there police there with you? I need to talk to them, please Mom…"

Leon traded places with the Ambassador so he could speak to the missing girl, finding himself impressed with how calm she sounded, "My name is Leon Vance. I'm an American investigator with NIS, the – " he began to introduce himself, but she cut him off.

"I know what NIS is Leon," she got out in quick succession, "I am being held in an underground bunker of some kind, Northwest of the embassy. It took about three hours by car, but they kept a hood over my head so I can't be more specific than that. There are six other kids here with me, some of them have been here for over a month, two of them are also Americans. All of them have been inside the embassy at some point over the last six months. From what I can tell, the men who took us did so for two reasons. First and foremost, we all have information pertaining to the security and layout of the embassy that they would need to plan an attack. Second, and I believe this is why the grabbed us instead of one of the security guards to get their information, we all have extremely wealthy family connections. I overheard one of them saying that they would be ransoming us after the attack to fund their escape and travel."

Ok, if he had been impressed by her calm demeanor before, he was dumbfounded by what he was hearing now. Emily was a little kid who had been kidnapped by some sort of terrorist cell, and had been held hostage for five days, and yet she didn't sound scared at all. Instead, she sounded like a trained agent who had spent the last five days gathering intel and was now reporting in. Who the hell was this girl?

"Ok Emily, I am going to get a team ready right now. We are going to find you," Leon assured her, "What else can you tell me? How many men are there in the bunker? Are they all armed?"

"Eight that I've seen, but I haven't exactly had the run of the place so I would expect there are at least a few additional guards at the entrances that I haven't seen," she continues to rattle off her observations in a quiet, determined voice, "Semi-automatic weapons. And I saw a case of C4 and hand grenades in the storage room. So make sure your guys are ready for one hell of a fight when you get here."

"Ok, we will be," Leon told her, "Just stay on the line for a little bit longer. We should be able to track your location in no time. Where are you right now Emily? How did you get this phone?"

Her response was far from what he expected to hear come out of a 9-year-old girl, "There are only eight guys for you to take care of down here now, but there were nine this morning. When he came into my cell this morning to take me to the room for interrogations, I used a broken shard of glass from the skylight to stab him in the neck. He's dead now, and I was able to get this phone off his body, but I don't have much time. I'm almost to the other cells, and I can get the other kids out of there with the dead guard's keys, but we will only be able to hide for so long before the find us, and I only have the one gun from my guard. Your guys need to hurry."

Her words kept playing over and over again in his mind. Interrogation. Had these kids been beaten? Tortured for information? Dead guard. She had used a makeshift weapon to kill a grown man armed with a semi-automatic gun? And now she was armed with that same gun, ready to use it if need be to defend herself and the other kids in the bunker… She was right, they needed to hurry.

Before he could say anything else, he heard the sounds of a struggle coming through the line, followed by several shots of gunfire, "Emily?! Emily, are you alright? Emily!"

There was no answer as the line went dead.

 **2 Hours Later**

Leon led the team of police down into the bunker. They had expected to meet heavy resistance, but instead found the main entrance open, the door ajar where the guards outside had evidently entered in a hurry. As they descended the stairs into the underground structure, they were met with an eerie silence.

And then he saw the first of the bodies, a single guard, pulled inside the door of a small holding cell, the guard Emily had killed in order to get her weapon and make her phone call. And he realized then, that Emily had been free and armed with nothing, bar a possible guard outside the main entrance, to stop her from simply running. And instead she had gathered the keys from the dead guard and made her way deeper into the compound in order to help the other kids there.

He just prayed they were all ok…

They continued into the bunker until they found two dead guards in the hall outside a larger holding cell, presumably where the other kids had been being held. This must have been where Emily was when she began taking fire while on the phone with him…

Both of these guards were also missing their weapons, and the holding cell was open and empty. So Emily had freed and armed the other kids, but where were they now?

There was also a blood trail leading away from the cell. It appeared Emily had taken a hit during her encounter with these men, which meant she was shot and had been down here injured for two hours…

Following the blood trail, Leon found himself headed down a dead-end corridor with a single door at the end. A door which was balanced precariously off its hinges, and was surrounded by carnage. There was blood everywhere, and an additional seven men could be seen dead.

One at Emily's cell. Two outside the second cell. Seven here. That made ten total. So assuming only one guard was posted outside, that accounted for all of the suspects based on young Emily's count.

"Emily?" Leon called out, hoping to alert the young girl and any other children in the room with her to his presence so he wouldn't get shot by a startled kid when he pushed open the door, "Emily, are you in there? It's me, Leon Vance. We spoke on the phone. I'm coming in. Don't shoot alright?"

He entered the room, and saw four very young children huddled in a corner, seemingly uninjured, with two slightly older children crouched in front of them, guns in their hands. And propped up against the wall beside them, with her gun still raised, and a pool of blood gathering around her tiny frame, was Emily Prentiss.

"Took you long enough," the Ambassador's daughter quipped with a breathy chuckle before lowering her gun and motioning for the other children to do so as well, "I would have waited for you to get here, but evidently William," she motioned to the youngest boy in the back who looked up startled at his name, "His father apparently passed away last night, so without anyone to pay the ransom, these guys had no more use for him. I couldn't risk waiting for the cavalry to get here. He would be dead, and we would all likely be long gone."

The other men with him gathered up the younger children in their arms and began carrying them out of the bunker. Leon was about to call for a medic to help Emily when she surprised him by pushing off the wall and standing up. Though she was clearly in pain, she stood tall, without wavering, and said, "I'll let a doctor look at me once we get out of here. I'm pretty sure the bullet when clean through my arm, so I should be ok. I just want to get out of here."

That was when he really looked around the room, and noticed what Emily kept glancing at. A metal chair in the center of the room, bolted to the floor, cords leading to a car battery clipped to either leg. This was the interrogation room, and he could only imagine the memories she was trying to escape in leaving this place behind.

"Let's get you home Emily," he said quietly, helping her to make her way back out of the bunker and into the woods outside.

Somehow this little girl had survived what he could only imagine was hell. And in fighting to survive, and protect the others, she had thwarted a terrorist attack on an American embassy, and stopped a ring of kidnappers. And taken a bullet for her trouble.

He didn't know how or when, but he just knew this little girl would grow up to be incredibly important to him and their country someday, and he vowed to keep in touch with her, and help her deal with everything that had happened to her.

 **Present**

"She was only 9 years old," he recalls, heartbroken for this girl, "9 years old, and she survived an abduction, being held captive for nearly a week, beatings, torture. But even then, just a kid, she had been willing to fight and kill to protect others. The other six children all confirmed after the escape that without Emily, they never would have survived."

"You're sure it's her?" Gibbs had to ask.

"Yes," Vance assured him, "She made an impression back then, and we kept in touch over the years. It's been years since we've seen each other in person; I attended her college graduation from Yale about 10 years ago. We've spoken fairly regularly by phone and email since then, but she was working overseas a lot of the time so I haven't seen her since. But that is most definitely Emily Prentiss."


	5. Ch 5 Shouldn't You Be in The Hospital?

**Chapter 5: Shouldn't You Be in The Hospital?**

"What can you tell us about her?" Gibbs asked his Director, trying to absorb the fact that their mystery Jane Doe, a woman who killed a Navy Petty Officer to save a Navy Lieutenant, was someone from his boss' past, someone he had known since she was a child.

"Obviously her mother was, and still is as far as I'm aware, an Ambassador, so she moved around a lot growing up," Vance began, "She's lived in at least a dozen different countries, and as a result, she speaks several languages fluently. Damn smart kid," they can all hear the hint of pride in his voice, like a father speaking of his daughter.

"What about more recently?" Gibbs pressed, "Who does she work for?"

"Like I mentioned before, Emily was top of her class at Yale," he reminded them, "Officially, she went to the FBI Academy after graduation, and has worked several postings in different Bureau field offices over the last decade. Unofficially, I believe she was recruited by Langley out of college, and joined the Bureau at some point after she left the Agency."

"So, she's CIA?" Tony asked, sounding both intrigued and worried. He didn't usually like anyone CIA, or FBI for that matter, but if she had the Director's approval, there might be hope for her. And he always did have a thing for a beautiful woman with a gun. This case was starting to look promising to the young agent.

"Unofficially, yes, former CIA."

Considering what he had learned about her over the last hour, Gibbs wasn't overly surprised that Agent Prentiss had worked in some form of intelligence and/or law enforcement, but that didn't mean it sat well with him. He had never had a good experience with a spook, former or otherwise, and it just gave him a bad feeling about this case.

"Do you have a way of getting in contact with the Ambassador?" Gibbs redirected the conversation, choosing not to comment on the spy connection for the moment, as it likely had no bearing on their case, "Any other family we need to get in contact with? Her father?"

Vance was suddenly feeling very protective of his longtime friend. This team had a way of digging until they got to the bottom of any mystery put in front of them. It made them good at their jobs, but Emily was not a suspect, and she had not been the target of the attack, so they didn't need to dig into her background. He was preparing to supply Gibbs with a non-answer and refocus them on the task at hand when a woman's voice suddenly filled the bullpen.

"That won't be necessary Agent," she said calmly, but firmly, "The Ambassador is not in country at the moment, and wouldn't be overly concerned about my current well-being in any case."

Everyone spun around, surprised that someone had been able to sneak up on them, and even more surprised to find Emily Prentiss herself standing in their office.

She had been less than a foot behind Agent David when she chose to make her presence known, and her sudden appearance had startled the former Mossad officer, not an easy feat given her training and field experience prior to coming to NCIS.

"Great," Tony grumbled, "Another ninja…"

"Don't worry Agent Dinozzo," Emily addressed the man's side comment, using his name much to everyone's surprise, except the Director of course, "I am no ninja. I'm simply here to save you the trouble of a trip back to the hospital. Dr. Gerandy informed me that you and your team would like to speak with me, so I came here first thing."

Gibbs took in her appearance then. She looked incredibly well put together for someone who had spent most of the morning in surgery and should really still be in a hospital bed. Aside from a barely visible row of stitches along her forehead, and some bruising, there were no visible injuries or bandages, though he was certain after watching the attack and hearing Dinozzo's report, that she was indeed in bad shape. Her arm wasn't even in a sling, though it certainly needed to be after taking a bullet which caused as much damage as they were told.

Emily was wearing black dress slacks, a casual red blouse, and a nice black blazer, clearly a different outfit than the bloody jogging clothes she had been rushed to the hospital in. The ensemble was complete with black boots, also a far cry from the shoes she had been found in. She must have gone home after she left the hospital, cleaned herself up, and made her way here.

"But the doctor said you wouldn't even be awake for a couple of hours at least," Tony argued, confused as to how she was here, "There's no way they let you leave the hospital."

"Well, they couldn't very well keep me there either," Emily responded cheekily before turning her attention to Director Vance, "It's good to see you Leon. It's been too long. I only wish it weren't under these circumstances."

"And you Emily," the Director responded, stepping forward and pulling his friend into a gentle hug, careful not to aggravate her injured shoulder, "Though if I understand correctly, the current circumstances are far better than they might have been if you had not gotten involved. You saved Lt. Collins' life."

"I was just in the right place at the right time," Emily brushed off the compliment, "Why don't you introduce me to your team?"

Leon gestured to Agent Gibbs saying, "His team actually."

Gibbs stepped forward, shaking Emily's hand firmly before introducing himself, "Special Agent Gibbs. These are Agents Dinozzo, McGee, and David." His introduction was gruff, but Prentiss was unbothered, nodding to each of them in turn before returning her gaze to Vance.

"You really shouldn't be up so soon after surg – "he started to say, his concern for her health evident, but she knew as well as he did that she wasn't going back to the hospital so she cut him off.

"We both know you don't normally spend time down here overseeing cases Leon. I'm fine, and I'm not going anywhere. Go back to work, and you and I can catch up tomorrow. I can pick you up for lunch, around say two?" she asked, easing his fears while also making it clear she wouldn't be bullied into leaving, and she didn't want anyone babysitting her.

The whole NCIS tensed slightly, prepared for the Director to become defensive at an outsider telling him where to go and what to do. Even Gibbs looked apprehensive, though he recognized that she had only meant to reassure her friend and not to insult him in any way.

Tony's mouth hung open like a fish a moment later, completely taken by surprise, when Leon Vance simply laughed, nodded his agreement and headed for the stairs saying, "I'll hold you to that Em."

Gibbs' team all swiveled their gazes back to their visitor with varying levels of curiosity, but before any of them could ask any of their burning questions, Emily reminded them of why she was there in the first place. "I'm assuming since I was still out when you came to the hospital earlier, that you've already interviewed Lt. Collins. How is she doing?" she asked with genuine concern for the woman she had never met.

"She's going to be alright," Ziva told her, "She asked me to thank you for her. You saved her life."

"I'm glad she's ok," Emily replied, purposefully ignoring the rest of Ziva's comment, "She passed out almost immediately after I got there so I imagine she wasn't able to tell you much about what happened after that?"

"No, she wasn't," Tim agreed, "But there was a camera that caught most of it. It isn't the best quality, and there's no audio, but we were able to see essentially what happened."

"Have you been able to identify her three attackers?" Emily asked, and it didn't escape anyone's notice that she only considered them Collins' attackers, despite having nearly killed her as well.

"The man you killed was Petty Officer Swanson," Gibbs told her.

"Makes sense that you were called in so quickly then," Emily surmised, "Dead Petty Officer falls squarely in your jurisdiction. His first name was Chris, right?"

"Christopher actually," Tony answered, "How did you know that?"

"Men who have every intention of killing you don't usually go to any lengths to keep their identities a secret. None of them wore masks, or used protection when they attacked Collins, and they all rather carelessly through their first names around when they came after me," Emily informs them, "You said you saw a video of the attack? Can you pull that up?"

"Uh, sure," McGee said, looking to Gibbs for permission and pulling it back up on the plasma when he nodded his ascent.

"This one here," Emily pointed out one of the men on the screen, "They called him John, and he referred to Chris as his brother. I'm not sure if he meant blood relation of perhaps a brother in arms given that Swanson was military, but either way, he should be the easier of the two to identify."

Tony immediately returned to his desk and started combing through Swanson's file, trying to identify this John character while Emily continued. "And this one," she pointed at the third man as the video showed him lunging at her back with a knife, "They called him Paul. I know where I shot him. He's got a pretty serious femoral bleed, so I would start looking at hospitals and urgent care facilities. If he hasn't turned up dead yet, then he had it treated somewhere."

"On it," Ziva answered her, returning to her desk to start calling hospitals.

Emily then turned to Agent McGee and said, "I also got a pretty good look at their getaway car. Dark blue sedan. Chevy. Partial plate beginning R347J. Good size dent in the left rear bumper. If they're smart, they'll have ditched it already, but assuming it wasn't stolen, it might help us ID our guys."

Tim immediately got to work on locating the vehicle, and Emily turned to Gibbs to deliver the last of her important news, "I don't know who they were or where they are now, but I have a fairly good idea of where they're going to be," she began and noticed that all eyes once again shifted to her, even as Ziva held her phone to her ear, "Before they left, John made it very clear things were not over between he and I. He intends to honor his brother by taking out his killer."

Gibbs' answer was simply, "You."


	6. Ch 6 A Team Run Ragged

**Chapter 6: A Team Run Ragged**

SSA Derek Morgan began gathering the team's case files. It had been an incredibly long week on this case in Oregon. And he was more than ready to go home and get a real night's sleep. With the team so shorthanded these last few cases, it had been nearly impossible to keep up with the usual demands of this job.

Jason Gideon had walked out on the team without any explanation aside from a vague letter he left for Reid saying goodbye, and basically saying he wouldn't be coming back.

Then the very next day, Emily Prentiss handed in her resignation after an apparent confrontation with their section chief, Erin Strauss. No one had seen or spoken to her since she walked out of the BAU, without so much as a goodbye.

Then, that very same afternoon, their then unit chief, Aaron Hotchner, had put in for a transfer to another unit. His departure was equally sudden and unexplained.

And all of this less than a year after Morgan's former partner, Elle Greenaway, had resigned after a questionable shooting.

The members of the BAU were dropping like flies, and it didn't take a genius to see that something else was going on here. Elle and Gideon at least had legitimate reasons for leaving, even if Morgan didn't agree with them. But Hotch? Emily? They both lived for this job, and this team, above anything and everything else in their lives, and neither were the type to leave without saying something. So Morgan couldn't help contemplating why they had both taken off on the same day…

Of course, he wasn't the only one. Reid practically worshipped Hotch and Gideon, and Emily had quickly become like an older sister to him. Their absence was eating him alive. Emily was JJ's best friend, so she was understandably concerned by her sudden departure. And Penelope was completely frantic, desperately trying to figure out what was going on.

Normally, if one of their own had taken off like this, the whole team would have dropped everything and gone to find them and talk some sense into them. But that hadn't happened here. The transfer and resignations had gone through the system before Garcia got into the office, and so there was nothing she could do to stop them taking effect, and the remaining members of the team had been called in to help Milwaukee PD before they had even been given the news.

And they hadn't been home yet in two weeks, going straight from Milwaukee to Kansas City, and straight from Kansas City to Salem, Oregon, where they had been for the last six days, working an incredibly hard case with half the manpower they usually needed.

So Morgan shouldn't have been surprised when JJ's phone rang before he had even finished gathering their things, and the look on her face told him they weren't going home tonight.

He supposed Gideon had been right. When it rains, it pours, and by the time you've grabbed an umbrella, you'll be swept away in the flood. No wonder he left…

"We've got another case," JJ told the other two exhausted agents, "Los Angeles this time. Four bodies in as many weeks." She sat back down at the table, looking utterly defeated.

"We can't keep going like this," Morgan growled out, "The three of us are damn good at our jobs, but we can't be expected to take the work of two profilers each on no sleep, week in and week out like this. This job is hard enough under normal conditions…"

"What are we supposed to do?" Reid asked, laying his head on the table when it became too much to keep his eyes open, "It'll take time to find replacements for Gideon, Hotch, and Prentiss. And someone still has to handle these cases."

"We don't need replacements," Morgan barked, getting angry even though it wasn't the kid's fault, "We need our team back!"

"And how do you propose we make that happen?" JJ snapped, "They left Morgan. Gideon ran. Hotch found a new team. And who knows what the hell Emily is doing now. For all we know, she is already working for the State Department or something. They're gone. They left. There's nothing we can do about it now."

"Come on! Doesn't it bother either of you?" Morgan continued to rant, but he really needed to get this out, "Gideon I can at least see. I mean he had one foot out the door for a long time, so him finally burning out and taking off doesn't really surprise me. But Hotch? He'll be miserable working some 9 to 5 blue color crime unit. This job was everything to him, so why the hell did he leave?"

Reid had no answer for him. He was just as confused by all of it. But JJ was not. She and Hotch had discussed all of this before he ever put in for the transfer, "Haley."

"What?" Morgan asked, confused, "What does his wife have to do with anything?"

"She and Hotch were having a lot of problems because of the hours of this job. She's been trying to get him to transfer for years. I can only assume that she finally gave him an ultimatum of some sort and he made his choice. This job may have been his one true calling or whatever, but his wife and his son are his entire world. He would never lose them if he could help it."

"He never said anything…" Reid sounded devastated. He looked to Hotch like an older brother in the same way Gideon had been a father figure for him, and he thought he should have seen something like this.

"You know Hotch," JJ said, squeezing Reid's shoulder lightly, "He kept everything close to the vest. He would never have said anything."

"Ok, maybe that's true," Morgan admitted, though he was far from convinced, "I still think something else is going on there. If this had been an ongoing problem between them for years, what's the likelihood that he finally agreed less than twenty-four hours after Gideon and Emily both leave? Would he really abandon this team at a moment like that to appease Haley?"

JJ knew he was right. That was the part of this that had bothered her the most. It wasn't something Hotch would do. She had honestly expected to see Haley serving him divorce papers before he agreed to leave the BAU. So maybe Morgan was on to something, but she couldn't admit that.

"It doesn't matter now. He did," JJ spoke as she stood, gathering the last of her things, "We need to go. The plane is waiting, and we are needed in LA."

But Morgan wasn't taking no for an answer this time. These were questions they should have asked the day they left for Milwaukee, and he didn't feel like they had any more time to waste, "Ok, fine. Hotch left. The timing is suspicious to say the least, but it is possible he really did leave of his own free will in order to save his marriage. That is still something that we need to ask him either way. But what about Emily? You remember how hard she fought for her place on this team; there is absolutely no reason for her to have left. And she didn't even transfer to another unit; she just came in one day and left. Something happened. Strauss did something or something was going on outside of work, I don't know, but something happened to make her leave, and I damn well want to know what!"

His outburst had gathered the attention of several of the LEOs still in the station, but the three profilers didn't seem to notice. They were in their own world in that moment.

"And we will," JJ promised, pulling her friend into a much needed hug, "Call Penelope on the way to the jet. Maybe she can piece together what Emily and Strauss were arguing about the day she left. And who knows, maybe she'll be able to figure out why Hotch had a sudden change of heart. But we need to go to LA, and we can't be distracted by this. We'll let Garcia dig and see what she can find, ok?"

"Yeah, ok," Morgan conceded, and a now calmer BAU team made their way out of the station.

 _Baby Girl will figure out what happened to this family_ , Morgan thought as they climbed into their single SUV. _She'll find the answers we need, and then I'll find a way to bring us back together…_

 **A/N: Well there you have it guys... The BAU team hasn't been ignoring Emily's existence after all; they're just overwhelmed and confused. What do you think PG will be able to dig up? And what happens when JJ finds out about Emily's injuries? Keep reading and you'll find out soon... :) As always, Read and Review! I look forward to hearing what you think.**


	7. Ch 7 Curious

**Chapter 7: Curious**

Emily had been in the Director's office with Vance and Gibbs for almost an hour, and Tony was growing more and more curious by the second.

Gibbs had immediately insisted on taking Emily to a safe house when she informed him that their guy had threatened to come back and finish the job. She had revealed a real stubborn streak then, vehemently refusing to hide away in some hole somewhere while NCIS took all the risks. It had been like the ultimate staring contest, a battle of wills in the middle of the bullpen, neither of them budging an inch.

And then Director Vance had called them both up to his office, evidently to add his two cents to the discussion. Tony had expected Vance to agree with Gibbs and put his foot down. It should have been a five-minute discussion that ended in Emily storming out of the office frustrated. Instead, it had been nearly an hour and still none of them had come out.

"What do you think they're talking about?" he finally voiced, his curiosity becoming too much to contain.

"Likely Gibbs is simply planning the best way to keep Prentiss safe," Ziva answered noncommittally, never looking up from her computer.

"For an hour?!" Tony returned, not believing that for a second. He would have literally killed to be a fly on the wall in that office right now.

"Agent Prentiss is important to Director Vance," she continued, looking at Tony as she often did when she believed he was being ridiculous, "That makes her safety a priority for Gibbs, and her input more valuable to him than a normal witness. I'm sure that is why they are spending more time on this than normal."

That brought Tony to another huge question of his, "Just what exactly is the relationship between Prentiss and Vance anyway? I mean who keeps in touch with a child victim from a case, decades ago in another country? Isn't that a little weird?"

McGee finally spoke up then, "He saved her life when she was a kid. She probably idolized him, maybe even saw him as a father figure, or an older brother, or something. So it makes sense for her to reach out to him. And you heard her story; she wasn't your everyday child victim. She was memorable, and impressed him. I don't think it's all that odd that he kept in touch with her. Especially since this was before he met his wife or had the kids; maybe he even sees her as a daughter."

Ziva was nodding in agreement as the youngest agent spoke, but Tony didn't seem convinced. Or perhaps he just wanted an excuse to snoop. Either way, he was suddenly in front of the plasma, running through the life history of Emily Prentiss.

"Emily Elizabeth Prentiss, born October 12, 1970 in Washington DC. Mother is Elizabeth Prentiss, US Ambassador to the UN, currently posted to the embassy in London. No father listed on the birth certificate, and Ambassador Prentiss has never been married," Tony was reading off the screen, unaware of the audience behind him.

"My father's name was Clayton Jones," Emily's voice behind him made him jump six inches in the air, and had Tim and Ziva stifling their laughter, "I will tell you whatever you want to know Agent Dinozzo if it pertains to the case. And I don't mind answering any personal questions you might have, even if only to satisfy your curiosity. But you should know by now, a person's file only tells you so much, and is often riddled with holes and misinformation."

She is smiling as she gently takes the remote for the plasma from his grasp, removes her file from the screen, and sets the remote on his desk.

He begins to attempt to stutter out an explanation, thankful that Gibbs was not also standing behind him, but she cuts him off gently, "Don't sweat it Tony. Mystery woman walks into your office with information about your case, a bullet wound in her shoulder, and an apparent connection to your Director. Checking up on her is only natural. I would do the same in your place," she assures him, not mentioning that she would be able to gain access to far more information with her security clearance, and would probably call in a favor or two to make sure her information was thorough and accurate, "So, you have questions. Shoot."

All three agents stare at her for a moment, confused, before they all start speaking at once. Emily just laughs, holds up her hand calmly and says, "Maybe one at a time?"

"Director Vance told us about what happened in Russia when you were a kid. You withstood torture without breaking, escaped from your cell, and took on trained, armed, men more than twice your size. Is that all true? And how did you learn to fight like that?" Ziva asked, receiving a dark look from Tony for getting her question in first, but in all honesty, it was something they all wanted to know.

"First off," Emily begins, "Yes, that is how it happened. I know it sounds a little unbelievable, but you should remember I was shot that day too. I didn't walk away unscathed from that bunker. None of those men saw me as a threat because I was so young, so I had the element of surprise on my side at first, and once I got my hands on a gun, I was more than capable of handling myself. My father taught me to shoot long before I was taken in Moscow."

"Your father, Clayton Jones?" Tony asked, "Who was he, and why would he have felt it was necessary to teach a little girl how to use a gun?"

"Clay taught me to defend myself for the same reason that his name doesn't appear on my birth certificate. He was high ranking CIA, and that meant he had a lot of enemies around the world that might try to use me against him."

"So your dad was CIA too?" McGee asked next.

"Too?" Emily focused on keeping her tone of voice innocent with just a touch of confusion. They couldn't know about her past, could they?

"Vance seems to be under the impression that you were with the Agency before you became a Fed," Tony explained.

"I never told Leon that," Emily hedged. She wasn't really supposed to talk about this, though given they were also federal agents, it should be alright as long as no classified information was exchanged. She didn't want to lie to them either; she felt like she could trust them for some reason, and she wanted them to trust her, "I can't talk about anything from that time for obvious reasons, but yes, I was CIA for several years before I joined the FBI. I also worked in connection with Interpol on several operations over the years. I suppose you could say, I followed in my father's footsteps. But things changed for me, and I wanted out of that life."

Ziva could relate to what this woman was saying, having experienced a very similar shift in her life not long ago, "My father is the Director of Mossad," she surprised Tony and McGee by revealing, "I was raised from a very young age to fight, to kill, and when I was old enough, I became an officer of Mossad. I was forced to kill my brother, Ari, when he threatened Gibbs, and I realized in that moment I needed out. NCIS became my family."

Emily's eyes soften as she hears this, finding true common ground with Agent David, "I am sorry for your loss. The passing of a brother is a painful burden to bear, no matter the circumstances," she tells Ziva, allowing herself to slip into Hebrew at the newfound knowledge that Ziva is in fact Israeli. Then, returning to English, she continues, "Clay had another child before he met my mother, a son named Ronan, my half-brother. He was killed while on mission when I was twelve-years-old."

The bullpen is silent for several moments as they all absorb this. Tony is about to ask something else when Gibbs' voice stops him short.

The gray-haired agent is leaning against the railing on the stairwell above the team, Director Vance at his side.

"David, McGee, I want you to keep working the case here. I want some answers when I get down there," he barks before turning to Tony, "Dinozzo, take Prentiss back to your place. She won't go to the safe house, and she refuses to return to the hospital, so I want you to keep an eye on her tonight."

There was a chorus of, "Got it, boss," heard among the team. Emily was not pleased with the arrangement, but decided it was better than having to go to the safe house, and all in all, Tony wasn't bad company as far as she could tell.

"Guess you're with me, Princess," Tony chuckled as he grabbed his things and led her toward the elevator.

"It would appear so," she responded, keeping her voice neutral, "That should give you plenty of time to ask what I'm sure are your millions of questions."

"I look forward to it," he replied, oblivious to her discomfort with the whole situation, "Do we need to go by your place for anything?"

"No, I grabbed my go bag before coming here," she told him, "I just need to get it out of my car. Unless you'd rather I follow you to your place?" she asked hopefully, momentarily entertaining the idea of ditching the young agent. She didn't think it would be all that difficult, and she abhorred the idea of being baby-sat this way, even if it was for her own protection.

"And give you a chance to escape your protective detail? Not a chance." So maybe he wasn't quite as oblivious as he appeared. She smiled good naturedly, and steered them towards her car so she could grab her bag.

"I didn't make it home last night for obvious reasons, and I never got a chance to plug in my cell phone. I can charge it when we get to your apartment, but there is one call I should probably make on the way," she explained, "Do you mind if I borrow yours?"

"Sure, no problem," Tony said readily, handing his phone over, his eyes alight with curiosity.

She quickly dialed the number as they climbed into his car, and was thoroughly surprised when it rang through to voicemail. It wasn't like him not to answer his phone.

"You've reached Agent Hotchner. Please leave a detailed message and I will get back to you as soon as I can," the recording sounded through her earpiece, and she sighed. This wasn't something she wanted to leave on his voicemail, but he was clearly wrapped up in a case if he wasn't answering.

"Hey Hotch. It's Emily. I know you guys are probably busy on a case. I just wanted to let you know I'm alright. I'm sure the hospital called JJ when I went into surgery, and I don't want anyone distracted while you're in the field. I'm ok, and left the hospital this afternoon. My phone has been dead all day, but you can reach me at this number if something urgent comes up. Otherwise, I'll have my cell back soon enough. Say hi to everyone for me. I miss you guys. Anyway, be safe. Bye."

She left her message, purposefully downplaying her injuries, and not mentioning her current predicament so as not to worry any of them. She would have called JJ herself, but she didn't want to have to answer the blonde's questions about why she left. Honestly, she knew Hotch might have the same questions, and she didn't want to discuss it with him any more than she did with JJ, but she also trusted he might put the pieces together on his own and leave it be.

"Thanks," Emily handed Tony back his phone and they left the parking lot, headed for his apartment.


	8. Ch 8 What They Don't Know

**Chapter 8: What they don't know…**

 **BAU Jet – Bound for Los Angeles**

"Thanks Baby Girl. Keep digging," Morgan spoke quietly into his cell phone before shutting it and returning to his seat.

"Garcia find anything?" Reid asked. He really wanted to know why the team had suddenly fallen apart, and even though he didn't want to admit it to Morgan, he really wanted Hotch and Emily back, and was hoping Garcia might find a way.

"It looks like Hotch is now leading a white collar crime task force. It's a good fit for him with his background as a prosecutor, but it doesn't handle nearly the same caliber of cases as we do. But it is a normal Monday through Friday, nine to five job that doesn't require him to travel."

"So it was Haley's choice, not his," JJ concludes sadly, knowing Hotch would go stir crazy working a job like that.

"That's what Garcia thought too," Morgan returned, "But she did some more digging, and found that Haley filed for divorce yesterday. I don't even know if Hotch has been served with the papers yet or not, but obviously this transfer hasn't saved his marriage."

JJ was shaking her head sadly at the news. Haley had pushed so hard for so long for him to leave the BAU, and now that he'd finally done just that, she was going to leave him anyway. Had likely already left him if divorce papers were already in play. It was wholly unfair to Hotch.

"And Emily?" Reid asked.

"Garcia said it looks like she has dozens of job offers on the table, but so far hasn't accepted any of them," Morgan explained, "In fact, she doesn't seem to have any significant activity of any kind since she left the BAU. She seems to be taking some time for herself before deciding what to do next."

"Which would support the idea that her resignation was not something she wanted or planned, but something that happened rather suddenly, and now she is trying to figure out her next move," JJ finished his train of thought. It was as close as she would come to admitting that Morgan had been right. Clearly something had happened to force their friend to quit, but what? Or who?

"She actually found something on Gideon too," Morgan told them, earning looks of confusion from both his remaining team mates, "Apparently, he had been requesting retirement since the bombing in Boston almost three years ago. The brass didn't want to let him go, so they compromised by having him teach that seminar. Then, when we brought him back into the field, he again pushed for formal retirement, and was denied. Him leaving was something that was a long time coming."

This news didn't really change the situation with regard to Jason Gideon in the slightest. He was gone, and he wasn't coming back, even if anyone could locate him in the first place. But it did ease some of the feelings of hurt and betrayal that all of them had been feeling since his departure. He hadn't wanted to leave for good, without saying goodbye. He had just wanted out of the job that was slowly eating away at his soul, and the brass wouldn't let him go, so he ran. The older man had felt trapped, and they couldn't really blame him for finding a way to escape, knowing how long he had tried to get out.

Reid looked like he was about to say something, but was silenced by the ringing of a cell phone.

"Hello?" JJ answered on the second ring.

"This is she," there was a long pause while someone spoke on the line, and both Reid and Morgan were growing concerned as they watched her eyes grow wide and her mouth fall open in surprise, "Is she going to be ok?"

Both men looked at each other silently questioning, but neither could offer the other any answers.

After another pause, "What do you mean she left?!" and then, "Yes, I understand. No, there's no one else to call. Just let me know immediately if she is brought back in. Thank you," and she hung up the phone.

"What was that about?" Morgan could tell something was wrong, and had a feeling it had nothing to do with the untouched LA case files in front of them.

JJ blew out a long breath before answering him as calmly as she could, "Emily was brought into the hospital last night, or rather early this morning I suppose. She was shot and had been pretty badly beaten. They rushed her into surgery and were able to repair the damage and remove the bullet, but she had no ID on her so they admitted her as a Jane Doe. Evidently, she woke up a couple of hours ago, and immediately signed herself out against medical advice. It took them a while to track down her records to notify me since she was originally admitted as a Jane Doe, but I'm the only emergency contact she has listed so they thought I needed to know, even if she had already checked herself out."

Reid was dialing before she had even finished explaining, suddenly needing to hear his friend's voice himself to confirm that she was alright. After only a few seconds he frowned and spoke into her answering machine, "Emily, it's Spencer. JJ just heard from the hospital and we're worried about you. Call me back as soon as you get this."

"It went straight to voicemail," the young genius stated, attempting to cover his concern.

 **Quantico, White Collar Crimes**

Agent Hotchner sat at his desk in his new office, surrounded by mountains of paperwork, a glass of scotch in his hand. The rest of the office had cleared out some time ago, but he couldn't bring himself to leave, to go home to an empty house. Haley had left just over a week ago, and taken Jack with her.

He had never wanted to leave the BAU in the first place, but after Strauss suspended him and began her 'investigation', he knew the writing was on the wall. The Section Chief clearly believed she had enough on him to have him fired, not that that was all that surprising at this point.

Gideon had made a real mess of things before he left, and that didn't reflect well on Hotch as a leader. Elle's questionable shooting and subsequent resignation alone were enough to make the higher ups question the BAU's practices. Not to mention, Reid's struggle with addiction which the whole team had kept out of reports, and purposefully hidden from Strauss.

If any of that had gotten back to his former boss, she would have had more than enough cause to send him packing. And she was behaving as if she had an informant who would give her just that. He didn't know who she was expecting to whisper in her ear, at least he didn't have any proof, but he had his suspicions…

Emily Prentiss.

He didn't really want to believe it, even now, but the woman was a diplomat's daughter. She had been placed with his unit without his knowledge or acceptance, and more than once he had concerns about her pushing a political agenda. She had always denied it and there had been no obvious signs that she was lying, but he couldn't think of anyone else that could have ratted him out.

She was the newest member of the team, with the most to gain by exposing their secrets, and no one outside the team knew about Reid or Elle in enough detail to really cause any damage.

So, operating under the assumption that if he didn't transfer out of the unit, he would be forcefully removed, Hotch had left the BAU in order to salvage some semblance of a career in the Bureau. And, of course, he had secretly hoped that the move to a more stable job that would have him home more would be enough to salvage his marriage as well.

That had not been the case. For as much as Haley had begged and pleaded, even demanded, that he quit his job, she didn't really want him home at all. He discovered rather quickly that she had in fact been having an affair for over a year, and was planning on leaving him no matter what he did. Taking Jack with her was just the kicker to the whole messed up situation.

So, here he was, sitting in his office long after the sun had set and everyone else had gone home to their families, drowning his sorrows in scotch, and missing his old team.

And that was when his cell phone rang. He reached for it, prepared to answer immediately, but stopped in his tracks when he saw who was calling him. Emily. What the hell did she want? She had betrayed him, and forced him to leave his job and his team behind. With Jack and Haley gone, that team was the closest thing he had to family, and she was the reason he wasn't with them right now. And he hated her for it.

He quickly declined the call, sending his former agent, and former friend, to voicemail, and tossed his cell phone into his bag without another thought. He didn't want to think about her any more tonight, or ever for that matter…

 **Tony's SUV – Bound for his Apartment**

"So," his voice broke the comfortable silence in the car as they turned onto the main road outside the Navy Yard gates, "This Hotch? Is he your boyfriend?"

Emily looked at him like he had just grown three heads, completely shocked silent for a moment, before she burst out laughing like a hyena. "No," she gasped out her answer between her hysterical laughter, "Not at all. Hotch is Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner, my former Unit Chief from the bureau. He's a friend, sort of, but we're not especially close. He was my boss."

While Tony felt properly chastised for his assumption, he covered it well, joking, "Workplace romance? Nice…"

If someone else had implied that she had been sleeping with her boss, Emily probably would have throttled them, but this was Tony Dinozzo, and even though she had known him less than a day, it was fairly obvious to her that he was an eternal joker and an incessant flirt. So he meant no disrespect, and wasn't serious in the slightest.

She punched him lightly in the shoulder, but gave him a wide grin so he knew she wasn't offended. When her silence dragged on for a few minutes he had to ask, "Former? So he isn't with the unit anymore?"

"Oh, no, um," Emily had completely forgotten that the NCIS agent didn't know she had resigned from the Bureau. She had of course told Leon and Gibbs both during their meeting earlier. It was necessary since they thought the FBI might want to take over the case, or at least handle her security, and she had needed to explain why that wouldn't be the case. Tony was a great investigator, he wouldn't be working for Leon if he wasn't, so he likely had already pieced this all together, but she had told him he could ask her anything…

"I left the unit, not him," she explained, "I resigned from my position at the BAU a few weeks ago."

"BAU?" Tony asked, confused, but also clearly avoiding his real question.

"Behavioral Analysis Unit," she explained patiently, after all they did get that question a lot, "We, uh, they are profilers. They get inside the heads of criminals and try to predict their next move in order to catch them. They usually deal with high profile cases, serial killings, child abductions, that sort of thing, and they're usually called in when the local PD hits a wall, or there isn't enough tangible evidence for a traditional investigation. It's a lot of travel, and the cases they handle are the worst of the worst, so it's pretty rough sometimes, but they put away offenders that no one else can catch, so it's also incredibly fulfilling."

He listened to her explanation with a growing sense of confusion. She clearly felt great pride in the work her team had done, and she was more than qualified for the position with her background. And after the things she had undoubtedly seen and done in the CIA, it wasn't likely she had burnt out working those sorts of cases. If anything, she was more equipped than most to handle that sort of violence. So why had she left?

"It's complicated," she spoke softly, seeming to answer his unspoken question. He realized she was doing her profiling magic on him right now, and could tell he was confused and curious. It was actually kind of spooky how she knew what he was going to ask before he did, but he was glad she did, because he didn't know how to ask without sounding like an ass. And he really did want to know.

"I think I can keep up," he countered, urging her to explain.

Emily had never really considered talking to anyone about what Strauss had done or why she had left. It had ultimately been her decision and she didn't regret it in the slightest, even if she did miss her team terribly. She hadn't even given Gibbs or Leon any real answers when they'd pushed earlier. But she felt like she could trust Tony, not that she didn't trust Leon, or any of his people for that matter, but Tony was different. He already felt like a playful older brother, even after only one day, really only a few hours. Maybe it was because he reminded her so much of Ronan, maybe it was just that Gibbs and Leon both trusted him implicitly. Whatever the reason, she decided she really could talk to him about this.

"Hotch and I knew each other a long time ago," she began, "He ran security for my mother when I was a teenager, and stayed on with her team when I left for college. He had been a prosecutor, and was branching out into the field for the first time. He didn't like me much since I was sort of a trouble maker back then, but I respected him, looked up to him even."

Tony was thoroughly confused about how this pertained to her leaving a job she loved and a team she trusted, but kept his mouth shut. The last thing he wanted was for her to clam up. She was trusting him an awful lot tonight, and he felt like these were things she really needed to talk about.

"Then, almost two decades later, I land myself a position at the BAU. I was beyond thrilled. It was the perfect transition from CIA to domestic law enforcement I was looking for, and honestly the BAU had been my dream job before the Agency had recruited me. I felt like my life was finally getting back on track, like I was where I was meant to be. And I hadn't felt like that in a long time," she struggled to keep her voice even as all those emotions ran through her once again. After Doyle, she had been so lost, and the CIA just didn't feel like home anymore. She had wanted out so bad, so when the offer came from the FBI she had jumped at the opportunity without a moment's hesitation.

"But then I walk into my Unit Chief's office, a box of my stuff in hand, and find none other than Aaron Hotchner waiting for me," she continued with a forced chuckle, "He didn't even recognize me at first, and when I introduced myself, all he said was 'Ah, Ambassador Prentiss' daughter. How do you do?'. I was so frustrated in that moment. It had taken me years to earn the level of respect and trust that I had with my old team, and there I was, suddenly reduced to a nameless, faceless, politician's daughter all over again."

Tony was beginning to understand why she would resent her upbringing, but he was still confused as to why she quit. She didn't seem like the type to just give up on her dreams because some jerk didn't take her seriously.

"As it turns out, Hotch hadn't known I was coming. He hadn't approved my transfer, and hadn't even been informed that the Bureau brass had been looking to replace his last agent. He basically told me it was a mistake and I didn't belong there, and then he and the team left town for a case. I, of course, didn't take that lying down, and four days later when they got back to DC I confronted him and convinced him to give me a shot on the team."

Now that sounded more like what he would expect from her. She fought for her spot and didn't take any of this guy's crap. But that stilled begged the question, why the hell did she leave?

"It took a long time for me to gain their respect, and even longer to gain their trust, but eventually I really became a part of the team, and our team was like a family. But then, my rocky introduction came back to bite me. As it so happens, Hotch's boss, Section Chief Erin Strauss was the one initially responsible for approving my transfer. And she felt threatened by Hotch, concerned that he might be a contender to replace her or even continue beyond her position towards top brass at the Bureau.

The whole thing was a political nightmare, but the gist of it was she wanted dirt on Hotch so she could demote or fire him, and since she got me the job, she wanted to use me to get it. And basically threatened to fire me if I didn't comply. So stuck between a rock and a hard place, I found the only way out that didn't tarnish my career or involve betraying a friend and colleague. I quit before she could fire me, and began looking for a position elsewhere."

As she finished her story, and they pulled up to his building, Tony couldn't help but feel his admiration for her growing even further. It was no wonder the Director respected her so much. She had left behind a job she loved, and a team of people that she loved, to protect her boss, even though he had been a total ass to her from day one. She was loyal to a fault, and didn't play political games. He couldn't help but think that in that moment, she reminded him quite a bit of Gibbs…


	9. Ch 9 Misconceptions

**Chapter 9: Misconceptions**

 **NCIS Headquarters**

Gibbs descended the stairs after finishing his conversation with the Director, with a new found determination to catch John and Paul before they could hurt Prentiss. He always threw himself into every investigation, and liked to believe that he was invested in solving every case that crossed his desk. But after listening to Leon talk about this woman he considered a daughter, Gibbs was more motivated than ever to protect her.

It only added to this feeling that she looked so much like Shannon.

The running joke around the water cooler here at NCIS was that he didn't have eyes for any woman that wasn't a flaming redhead. And given that wives two, three, and four, all were in fact reds, evidence seemed to confirm this for everyone involved. Perhaps only two or three people in the world knew the truth. Shannon, his first wife, and the love of his life, had certainly had a fiery temper, but her hair was long locks of raven curls. And their daughter, Kelly, had inherited her looks completely.

After they were killed, it was almost painful for Gibbs to look at any woman that had even a passing resemblance to his late wife and daughter, so naturally, when he eventually re-entered the dating scene years later, he gravitated towards redheads. And three failed marriages later, he was fairly certain that had been a bad idea. If he couldn't bear to be with anyone who reminded him of Shannon, then he was clearly still in love with her, and being with anyone else while he was, doomed the relationship from the start.

Regardless, the fact that she looked so much like her, and like he imagined his daughter might have looked now, made Gibbs instinctively want to keep her safe, the way he wished he could have kept his family safe…

Entering the bullpen where David and McGee were still working, Gibbs grabbed their attention with his usual, "Report!"

"Tony was able to ID one of our guys," Tim jumped up in front of the plasma and started scrolling through the new information, "Petty Officer Johnathon Bennett was a match for the attacker Prentiss called John. I called his CO, and it turns out Bennett and Swanson were both on shore leave until Monday and no one has seen or heard from them since before the attack. The two are half-brothers, but there's no evidence that they lived together growing up. The ID doesn't give us much though. No address on file except a PO box that hasn't been touched in months. No car registered to him. No purchases to help us narrow down his location."

"And Paul?" Gibbs turns to his young agent, hoping for more promising results on that end.

"Nothing yet boss. I'm combing through both Bennett and Swanson's histories to try and find the connection, but there wasn't enough for a facial recognition match."

"Keep at it McGee," Gibbs ordered, "And first thing in the morning, I want Prentiss with a sketch artist. If you haven't got a name for me, I damn well want a picture to show to the crew tomorrow," then turning to Ziva, "David?"

"No one matching the description of our guys has been seen in any of the hospitals or urgent care centers in the area," Ziva doesn't like not having anything substantial to report, but it has been one dead end after another all afternoon, "Tim ran the partial plate Prentiss gave us, and found the getaway vehicle. It was registered to a Susan Platt, an elderly woman from West Virginia who reported the car stolen last week. I put a BOLO out on the car and DC Metro found it abandoned along the Potomac. CSI is working it over right now, but we won't know until tomorrow if they were able to get a DNA match on Paul."

"Alright, call the hospital. I want a protection detail outside Lt. Collins' room until we know who we are dealing with," Gibbs knew that the threat was issued to Prentiss, but if either of their guys thought Collins might be able to ID them, they might come after her too. Better safe than sorry on this one, "Then I want you to join Prentiss and Dinozzo. Until we have Bennett and Paul in custody, I want you and Tony to keep an eye on her, got it?"

"Of course," she replied easily, picking up the phone to call the hospital.

"And I want everyone in here tomorrow morning," Gibbs continued before heading to the elevator.

Tim and Ziva both understood the necessity of working through the weekend when there was an open case that demanded their attention, especially one that might still be threatening the life of a Navy Lieutenant. Add to that the personal aspect of the case for the Director, and they weren't surprised in the slightest.

None the less, Tim couldn't help but groan internally at the news. Well, there went his Sunday off…

 **Hotchner House:**

Aaron pushed open the front door to his home with an overwhelming sense of loneliness. He used to look forward to coming home after a long case to see his wife and son. Now he dreaded coming home to the big, empty house. And of course, now, when he actually wanted to bury himself in a case across country for a week, he had absolutely nothing of note to distract himself. He couldn't help but snort internally at that. It just figures.

He locked his gun in the safe like he always did when he got home. These days he often felt like his gun was little more than a fashion accessory he was required to wear to the office. Reid had told him on more than one occasion that a great majority of FBI agents never actually fire their weapon in the line of duty; a fact which he had never truly thought about until he realized he was now essentially running a desk and had fallen into the category of agents who never fire their guns.

In fact, if he were here now Reid would likely have a specific statistic to quote on the topic. And the utter silence of his lonely dwelling felt even more oppressive with the thought that Reid would never be there. How had his life turned into this?

It had only been a couple of weeks since his transfer, and already Hotch felt as though his entire life was crumbling around him. There was no way that he could keep going into that damned office every day and faking enthusiasm about the importance of solving white collar crimes.

Truth be told, he really didn't even have to go into the office today, given that it was a Saturday and this was a primarily Monday through Friday operation, but he couldn't bear to sit in the house by himself all day, wallowing in his own misery. Tomorrow though, he had no choice. The office wasn't even open on Sundays, so he was forced to take the day off, whether he liked it or not.

On that note, he poured himself a generous tumbler of scotch and sat down on the couch, letting his eyes drift closed. How could he be so tired and run down from doing absolutely nothing all day?

Ding!

He peeled his eyes open and peered down at his bag, where his cell phone was still lodged. The offending piece of technology had been dinging the whole way home, likely reminding him that his former agent had attempted to call him, as if the incessant reminders would make him more inclined to return the woman's call. Which it most certainly would not. If anything, he was growing increasingly irritated, both with the phone, and with Prentiss herself. What the hell did she want from him?!

When it again sounded a few minutes later, Hotch finally decided he needed to turn the damn thing off. He reached into his bag and pulled out the phone, only to find that in addition to a missed call from Emily, there was also a voicemail from none other than Emily Prentiss. But there was also another missed call, and message from a number he didn't recognize about an hour earlier in the evening. Who could that be?

"Great, just what I need right now…" he grumbled to himself as he lifted the phone to his ear and pressed play, choosing to listen to the other message first, since he didn't really want to deal with Emily.

"Hey Hotch. It's Emily," her voice sounded in his ear. Wait, what? He thought he had hit the other message. He pulled the phone away from his ear, and sure enough, he was listening to a message from an unknown number, but it was clearly Emily on the line. Whose phone was she calling from, and why had she needed to call twice in as many hours after two weeks of nothing?

He very nearly deleted the message and said screw her, but now he was curious. Maybe she had done that on purpose, calling him from a different number so he would actually listen to the message. Maybe not. Either way, he was curious now, and he couldn't help but notice how tired she sounded. He told himself that he shouldn't care if she wasn't sleeping because she was too busy on a case, since she was the reason the team was a man short in the first place, but she couldn't help himself from worrying about her just a little bit. It was a hard habit to break, even if she had betrayed him, especially since he figured it also meant the rest of the team was equally worn down, and he did still care about all of them.

"I know you guys are probably busy on a case," she continued, leaving him feeling incredibly confused, "I just wanted to let you know I'm alright. I'm sure the hospital called JJ when I went into surgery, and I don't want anyone distracted while you're in the field. I'm ok, and left the hospital this afternoon. My phone has been dead all day, but you can reach me at this number if something urgent comes up. Otherwise, I'll have my cell back soon enough. Say hi to everyone for me. I miss you guys. Anyway, be safe. Bye."

If he wasn't confused before, he certainly was now. Hospital? Surgery? What the hell had happened to Prentiss?

She missed the team? And she thought that he was with the team? And she was worried about him, them?

He had been operating under the assumption that Strauss had somehow gotten Emily to tell her everything she needed to know to have him fired, and that after he transferred, the rest of the team had continued on as normal. Instead, this message implied that Emily was not only not with the team now, but hadn't been in at least two weeks since she didn't seem to know that he had transferred. Was it possible that she had refused to help Strauss come after him and had instead left herself? Had he been angry with her for two weeks when she hadn't betrayed him at all, but instead sacrificed herself in his defense?

That wasn't possible, was it?

Now Hotch needed to know what was going on, so he immediately pressed play on the second message.

"Hotch, I just got my phone back up and I have several messages from the team. They're worried sick. Didn't you pass along that I was ok? I don't want them worried, but I can't very well call them without explaining why I left, and I'm assuming you don't want them getting involved in this mess any more than I do. The last thing we need is an angry Derek Morgan going after Strauss himself and getting fired. Can you please just talk to them and tell them I'm ok?"

Well, hell, what was he supposed to do with that? She clearly was not with the team. And she did not know about his transfer. And something had definitely gone down with Strauss. And she was still protecting not only himself, but the rest of the team as well. All while she was apparently either sick or injured.

Call JJ. He needed to call JJ. Tell her that Emily was ok, and get some damn answers about what was going on with his team.

With new found purpose, he began dialing the familiar number.


	10. Ch 10 Playing Phone Tag

**Chapter 10: Playing Phone Tag**

 **BAU Jet – Bound for LA:**

"Please just call me so I know you're ok," Reid finished leaving his voicemail for Emily with a heavy sigh before setting his phone down in front of him. It was the fourth time he had called her since JJ received word from the hospital, and he knew Morgan and JJ had both also called and texted her several times. It was still going straight to voicemail, and they were all growing more worried by the minute.

"Still no answer?" JJ asked him as she returned to her seat beside him, slipping her own cell phone into her pocket.

"No, not yet," Reid answered, trying not to sound as panicked as he felt, "I'm sure she just hasn't had the chance to turn it on yet. She'll call us when she gets the messages."

JJ knew that he was just trying to reassure her, but she still had to resist the urge to snap at him. Emily was hurt, and the doctors really hadn't told her all that much. They didn't know how seriously she was injured. Only that she had received a gunshot wound that required surgery. And that the ever-stubborn woman had left the hospital AMA.

What other injuries did she receive? Who had shot her? Was it a simple through and through, or had there been internal damage? For all they knew, she could be bleeding out in her apartment right now…

"Ok, that's it," Morgan suddenly exclaimed as he reached for his own cell phone, "We have a case to prepare for and less than three hours before we land in LA and need to be focused. And none of us are going to be able to do that until we get some answers."

"Who are you calling?" JJ didn't see how continuing to call Emily at this point was in any way a good use of their time or energy, and it certainly wouldn't help them get ready for their new case.

"Garcia," he muttered as the phone rang quietly in his hand. He placed the call on speaker and placed the cell phone in the middle of the table between the three of them.

"Chocolate thunder, what can I do for you this evening?" their technical analyst's bubbly voice came through the line, "I haven't found anything else of consequence on our little family investigation…" she trailed off, clearly referring to the side project Morgan had asked of her. She really was looking for some evidence of who or what had driven their team members to leave, but there was nothing jumping out at her from the weeks prior to the mass exodus.

"Keep at it Baby Girl," he reassured her, "But that's actually not why I called."

"What's going on?" she asked, sounding more curious than concerned, likely assuming it was about their latest case and not another personal matter.

"JJ got a call from George Washington Memorial Hospital. Apparently, Emily was admitted this morning as a Jane Doe, and when she woke up, she checked herself out of the hospital against the medical advice of her doctor. We've been trying to call her, but her phone keeps going straight to voicemail. Could you track her down for us? We all need to know that she's ok, so we can focus on our work here."

"Oh my goodness," Penelope let loose a little shriek at the realization that her friend was hurt, before the sound of her fingers flying across the keyboard came through the phone, "Her cell phone is dead or turned off, so I can't get a current location, but it last pinged from inside her apartment early this morning."

"Does her apartment building have security cameras?" JJ asked, "We don't even know where she was shot. Maybe we can see if she left or if someone broke in."

There was a short pause while Garcia looked up the appropriate information before she found what she was looking for, "Ok, there are cameras, but not on her floor. They're all on the ground floor at the main entrances and exits. It looks like Emily left the building around three a.m. this morning."

"What was she doing going out at the time of night?" Reid was genuinely confused. It wasn't even close to usual behavior for their former teammate, and he honestly couldn't imagine her going out for any reason at that time, even if it was a Friday night, or rather Saturday morning…

"She was wearing yoga pants, sneakers, and a light jogging jacket. No purse or other bags. Just her apartment key around her neck. I can only assume she was going for a run," Garcia correctly surmised.

"At three in the morning?" Morgan was still hung up on the ungodly hour his former partner was leaving her home.

"Emily goes running when she needs to think, or she wants to burn off some anxious energy," JJ explained, "She used to slip out of the hotel sometimes in the middle of the night when one of our cases wouldn't leave her alone. If something was bothering her about the profile, or she'd had a particularly nasty nightmare, she'd leave for an hour in the middle of the night to run it off. The woman is a proper insomniac at the best of times; I can imagine that right now, stressing about whatever is going on with leaving the BAU and finding a new job, she has probably been doing this a lot."

While every one of them had had difficulty sleeping from time to time as a result of this job, it was still surprising to the others that Emily had struggled so much, or that she had developed this particular trick to deal with it. Then again, JJ was the only one who ever bunked with the woman when necessary on their travels, so it made sense that she would be more familiar with her nighttime behavior than anyone else on the team.

Morgan couldn't help but wonder if maybe Emily hadn't been quite as put together as she always appeared? She had never seemed overly tired or unfocused, even on the worst of their cases, and he never would have imagined she wasn't sleeping or that she suffered from frequent nightmares. He made a mental note then to pay more attention in the future, and to be there for her however she needed him.

"So she went running?" Reid brought them back to the task at hand, "Garcia, can you track her movements on the cameras in the area? Where did she go? Did she make it back to her apartment before she was hurt, or did something happen while she was out?"

"Way ahead of you junior G-man," she scoffed, "Our girl can seriously run. I lost her a couple of times when she went through particularly sketchy neighborhoods with no cameras, but I was able to track her down to the warehouse district. Looks like she'd been running for a little over two hours when she stopped suddenly down near the docks. Oh God…"

"Garcia? What is it?" JJ heard the fear in her friend's voice, and just knew that she had found video evidence of Emily being shot. She was thoroughly impressed by Emily's running stamina, but she couldn't really focus on that at all right now.

"I, I don't even, I'm just going to send you the link," Garcia stuttered her response, clearly bothered by her discovery.

Morgan pulled out his tablet, placing it on the table beside his phone and started the video he'd just received.

There was no audio, and it was a very poor quality video, but that didn't stop all three of them from immediately identifying Emily running between the empty warehouses. She stopped in her tracks, her head swiveling around from side to side as if she had heard something and was trying to determine where it had come from. They all noticed her instinctively reach to her hip for her gun, which wasn't there, and knew whatever was about to happen wasn't going to be good.

The camera angle switched to another alley, and they watched three men attack an unknown woman who was clearly screaming for help. It became painfully obvious in that moment exactly what noise had startled their friend, and they all feared they knew what was coming. She wouldn't be able to stand by and let something like this happen. She had no weapon, no cell phone, and they were too far from anyone else for her to go for help.

They watched helpless while the woman was beaten and raped, and then as their former teammate interrupted the attack. They sat in horrified silence as they watched the men pull first blades and then a gun on an unarmed Emily. They couldn't tear their eyes away from the little screen as Emily was beaten, or as one of the men held her down, straddling her waist, clearly intent on raping her.

They watched her shot, watched her kill the pig that had shot her, and shoot another of the men.

They all knew immediately when Emily had run out of ammunition and watched terrified as the two remaining men cornered her.

And then they breathed a sigh of relief when those same men ran out of the alley, and police arrived on scene, paramedics close behind them.

Garcia's voice broke into their shocked silence as the video ended, "It looked like Emily and the woman she saved were both taken in ambulances to the hospital, and the police processed the scene. The third guy, the one Em shot twice, appears to be dead."

So now, they had the first of their answers.

"So Emily goes for a run to clear her head, and stumbles onto a crime in progress," Morgan summarized, "Saves the victim, kills one of the unsubs, and holds the other two off long enough for backup to arrive, getting shot and fairly beat up in the process?"

"That seems to be an accurate description of events," Reid added dryly, trying desperately not to let his horror at Emily's situation seep into his voice, "Do we know how hurt she was aside from the bullet wound?" he asked JJ.

"No, the doctor I spoke to didn't give me any specifics on that front, but based on that video I'd say she isn't in good shape," she answered honestly, "Can you get a look at her medical records?" she asked Garcia, fully aware that the request was technically illegal, but also quite sure that her friend was already working on it anyway.

"Of course," she answered easily, "Just a moment."

But she didn't get a chance to fill them in because that was when JJ's phone rang…

Thinking it was Emily finally calling them back, she snatched it out of her pocket like it was a literal lifeline and answered on the first ring, not even bothering to look at the caller ID, "Hello? Emily?"

There was a moment's pause, and Morgan couldn't help but notice the slight furrowing of her brows before she asked, "Hotch?"

 **Tony's Apartment, DC:**

Tony opened the door for Emily when they arrived. She had been trying hard to cover it, but he could tell that she was exhausted, and in quite a bit of pain. She was clearly an incredibly tough woman, but even she couldn't spend the day on her feet immediately after being shot and undergoing surgery without there being repruscussions.

"The guest bedroom is through here," he pointed her in the right direction, "Go ahead and get settled. Plug in your phone, freshen up, do whatever you need to. I'll order us some take out."

"Thank you Tony," she really was grateful for how understanding he had been about everything tonight, and even if she didn't like being babysat, she was thankful he had opened his home to her rather than send her to a safe house somewhere.

She quickly made her way into the guest room, and immediately plugged in her phone.

Within seconds it began vibrating with incoming messages, missed called, and voicemails. All of them from JJ, Derek, and Spencer.

She started listening to them, curious what their reactions would be to Hotch's limited information on her current state, and hoping they weren't overly concerned on her behalf. After all, she was fine.

"The hospital called me," JJ's voice was the first to come through the device, "I don't know what's going on, but a bullet wound is serious. I'm worried about you. Please call me back."

Hotch clearly hadn't done enough to reassure them, but at least she sounded calm and rational enough considering. Not that Emily shared her sentiment in the slightest. She'd been shot enough times over the years, that a single GSW with no significant internal damage was hardly a serious matter in her book.

She started the next message and almost laughed at Reid's usual antics, "Emily, it's me. Um, did you know that the first twenty-four hours after surgery, patients are at far greater risk of infection and more than 70% of all complications from surgery also happen in the first two days post-op. I know you hate hospitals, but you really should let the doctors monitor your recovery right now. I'm just worried about you. Can you please call me back? I just need to hear your voice so I know that you're ok."

He also sounded really worried. Damn it Hotch. He was supposed to make sure they were focused on the job and not stressing about her, but clearly he hadn't done so at all.

She clicked on the next message, one from Morgan, and had to pull the phone away from her ear almost immediately as his booming voice came through the line, "Emily Prentiss, plug in your damn cell phone! You cannot do this to us right now, princess. What in the hell were you thinking leaving the hospital hours after being shot?! You could have died on us, and you just check yourself out AMA and then don't call anyone?! So not ok," she could hear him taking several deep breaths as he tried to calm down and then his voice continued, sounding more tired than she had ever heard him, "We are all so worried about you. We just need to hear your voice right now. Please, just call me back."

Well, crap.

She really wanted to call them back right now and tell them everything. She wanted to talk to someone about what happened in that alley. She wanted to talk to someone about Strauss and the BAU and her damn choice about where to go next. After all, that was what had started this whole stupid chain of events. She wanted to reassure them that she was going to be just fine, and hear them laugh and cry and promise to visit when they got home from wherever they were now.

But she couldn't. Not without making a mess for Hotch, and herself. And probably getting the rest of the team into hot water.

So, she called Hotch, again. And again, the man didn't answer his damn cell phone. A trend which seemed to be holding true for the evening, throughout the whole team.

"Hotch, I just got my phone back up and I have several messages from the team. They're worried sick. Didn't you pass along that I was ok? I don't want them worried, but I can't very well call them without explaining why I left, and I'm assuming you don't want them getting involved in this mess any more than I do. The last thing we need is an angry Derek Morgan going after Strauss himself and getting fired. Can you please just talk to them and tell them I'm ok?"

She finished leaving her message for her former boss, and prayed he would handle the situation on their end.

Satisfied she had done all she could for right now, she headed into the bathroom to clean herself up after what had been an incredibly long, hard day.

 **Hotchner Home, DC:**

The phone didn't even ring one full time before JJ's voice greeted him, "Hello? Emily?"

She sounded absolutely worried sick, and he immediately felt bad. Emily had trusted him to make sure the team knew she was alright, and because he was mad at her, he hadn't answers her call, or even listened to her messages right away. JJ's growing fear for her well-being was his fault.

"Um, no JJ," he corrected her calmly, "It's Hotch."

"Hotch?" she sounded confused, and just a little deflated. Clearly she had hoped that Emily was finally calling her back.

"Yeah, JJ, it's me. Is the rest of the team there with you?" he asked, not wanting to have to repeat anything, and hoping to get some answers from the lot of them.

"Yes, Morgan and Reid are here with me," she told him, placing him on speaker, "We are on the jet right now, but we have Garcia patched in already so she can hear you too. What's going on?"

"Emily called me," he began, deciding they clearly needed some reassurance that she was alright before he started asking them any questions, "She wanted me to make sure that everyone knew she was ok, but her message didn't say exactly what had happened. Just that she was in the hospital and that she didn't want anyone to worry because she knew they probably called you, JJ. So who wants to explain to me what's going on?"

"Garcia was able to find some surveillance footage of the, uh, what happened," Reid started, unsure how to explain it, "Emily interrupted a rape while out on her run, and ended up killing one of the unsubs. She was shot, and after she woke up from surgery, she checked herself out AMA, and none of us have been able to get ahold of her since."

"Her message said her phone was dead, so she had used a friend's instead," Hotch explained quickly, "You said one of the unsubs. Were there others there? Have they been caught?"

"Two other men that fled the scene," Morgan filled him in, while Garcia simultaneously sent him the video she had pieced together.

He watched, glad the others couldn't see the tears welling in his eyes as he saw his friend fighting for her life.

Clearing his throat, he then changed the subject quickly, "She is ok, and I'm sure she will call you all back soon enough. Can someone please explain to me why she was alone in an alley in DC in the middle of the night instead on the jet headed towards a new case with the rest of you?"

"You don't know?" Morgan sounded surprised, and confused, "Emily resigned from the BAU the same day that you transferred to White Collar Crimes. None of us have seen or heard from her in two weeks."

"That's what I was afraid of," Hotch muttered, "Until I received the message from Emily today, I believed that she was still with you all. In fact, I was under the impression that she had secured her job by informing on me with Strauss," he decided to just tell them the truth since they were safely removed from the situation sitting on the jet, and there was no chance of Derek doing something stupid, at least not right away, "Clearly, that was not the case…"

"I don't understand…" Reid replied slowly.

"Strauss has been trying to get rid of me for quite some time," Hotch admitted, "With me coming off of a suspension, she was prepared to finally fire me out right. She made it clear that there was someone within the unit who would be able to provide her with all of the evidence she needed to have me removed from the Bureau for good. My only out was to transfer out of the BAU and out of her immediate control before she did so."

Hotch continued while the team registered this with varying levels of confusion and anger, "I assumed that Emily was the informant, and based on what's happened I do believe that she was the one Strauss attempted to turn. Her introduction to the team was incredibly rocky, and I always suspected that Strauss was directly responsible for her joining the team in the first place, so she likely blackmailed her or even threatened to fire her out right if she didn't inform on me."

JJ finally caught the direction of his thoughts, "But since she quit, you think she refused Strauss' demands and left on her own before she could be fired, same as you, only she didn't have another unit to transfer to right away?"

"Yes," Hotch replied simply, and now that he heard someone else lay it out so simply, it really did seem like something Prentiss would do. He felt horrible for thinking so poorly of her these last few weeks when she had actually gone to bat for him and never said anything.

"Well damn," Morgan's whispered response was an even blend of fury with Strauss, and pride for Emily, "That explains a few things. We will be dealing with this when we get home from this case, but right now I'm more concerned with the fact that Emily is recovering from a bullet wound alone somewhere. Hotch, you said she called you on a friend's number, right? Can you send that to Garcia so we can track her down? I want to know where she is staying."

He did and Garcia got to work. He could have simply told them that Emily's cell phone was now on, but he knew that he needed to bring her up to speed before she spoke with the rest of them, and didn't want them to call her right then.

"I've got an address for an apartment building," the technical analyst informed him, "I'm sending it to you now."

"Ok," Hotch acknowledged as he received the message, "I will check in with her, and make sure that she is really ok. You all focus on your current case, and when you all get back, we will deal with this situation with Strauss, ok?"

"Alright Hotch," Morgan agreed, "Take care of our girl."

"I will," he promised, hanging up the phone, and grabbing his car keys.


	11. AN

**THIS IS NOT A NEW CHAPTER... But there will be one very soon... :)**

 **A/N: I am so sorry everyone for the long wait on updates across all of my stories. I have been dealing with a tremendous amount of personal struggles over the last several months, and I know it's no excuse for neglecting all of my wonderful readers, but I am sorry all the same. I just wanted to let you know that I have not abandoned my stories, and I am working on updates as we speak, so the long wait is almost over. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed my stories in the last few months, and thank you to everyone who is still reading my work despite the long wait.**


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